Rare Find: a New Language (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

OCTOBER 6, 2010

Rare Find: a New Language
As Native Tongues Rapidly Become Extinct, Linguists Discover an Exotic Specimen

By ROBERT LEE HOTZ
USA

In the foothills of the Himalayas, two field linguists have uncovered
a find as rare as any endangered species—a language completely new to
science.

The researchers encountered it for the first time along the western
ridges of Arunachal Pradesh, India's northeastern-most state, where
more than 120 languages are spoken. There, isolated by craggy slopes
and rushing rivers, the hunters and subsistence farmers who speak this
rare tongue live in a dozen or so villages of bamboo houses built on
stilts.

The language—called Koro—was identified during a 2008 expedition
conducted as part of National Geographic's Enduring Voices project.
The researchers announced their discovery Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
So many languages have vanished world-wide in recent decades that the
naming of a new one commanded scientific attention.

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